With former head coach Scot Loeffler’s departure from the Falcons this offseason to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, a new-look football program led by new head coach Eddie George will debut in the fall.
With a new coach comes a new identity. Falcon Media Sports Network sat down with offensive coordinator and former quarterback Travis Partridge to discuss the program’s state and culture heading into the first season under the new regime.
Partridge is the former offensive coordinator for Tennessee State (2024) and coached at Kansas as an offensive quality control coach (2019-21).
Q: How would you describe your coaching style and philosophy?
Partridge: “I try not to overthink it offensively, ultimately balance is the goal, and ultimately you just try to get your best players in the best position to make plays. I think when offensive coordinators get in trouble is when they try to fit everything into this system in this cute little box, and it’s not that simple sometimes. So, there are distinct traits an offense is going to have, downhill running game, or physicality, the explosiveness that kind of stuff.”
Q: How do you stress that attitude towards your players: Does it start in the recruiting process or more gradually over time?
Partridge: “I think it starts in the recruiting process. You look for a certain type of player, character-wise, physical traits, competitive traits; you get as many good football players in your building as possible, and then from an offensive standpoint, there’s a system. There are different things we call things and the language of terminology and all those kinds of deals, but sometimes it’s as simple as getting the right people in the building.”
Q: Any specific players that you’re excited for BG fans to see when football starts in the fall?
Partridge: “I think our offensive line is one of the best units, you know, I haven’t seen the rest of the league yet right, but I’d be hard pressed to find a better unit than that and they’re the leaders of the offense and that’s an unbelievable thing to have right. When your leaders are all linemen, usually it’s a tough group, and that’s what we have on offense.”
“There are several backs, there are several receivers, it’s hard to really put- ‘hey, this is the guy, this is the guy.’ I just think we have a bunch of really good football players and I’m really excited to watch them continue to grow and learn and develop and make a bunch of plays next year.”
Q: In your playing and coaching career, what is integral in building something that is championship caliber?
Partridge: “Well, I think you are what you emphasize and we’re gonna emphasize physicality, explosiveness, how we practice is how we play out there, and if you go watch us practice, I think it’s a really fast unit and a really physical unit. To answer your question, I think it’s less about me and more about us. There’s been no selfishness. Those kids had to get a new coach, a new coaching staff, and they all stayed together for the most part. So it was a player-led unit to begin with, so then we just take what your idea of your culture is and push it, emphasize it, and the kids have done unbelievable.”
Q: In what ways have the newer members of the offensive, whom you and Coach George brought in, been helping out?
Partridge: “Well, there’s one thing you can’t fake, and you can’t fake experience right and their experience playing college football has made it easier for them to learn right. Just like anything else, if you know more about a subject and then a new chapter is introduced, well, it’s not that big of a deal, right? It’s a new chapter, it’s a new language, I called it tomato, well, the last offence called it tamato, right- it’s a translation more than anything, and these guys, the experience level takes the stress out of it.”
Q: How have players adapted to the new culture set by Coach George?
Partridge: “Well first of all, coach George, he’s an unbelievable person, he has a larger than life persona and he’s cool to be around, the players love being around coach George and anytime that happens, I’ve always said this as far as coaching, you want to prove your coach right. If you want to prove him right more than you want to prove him wrong, good things happen. He pushes positivity, he pushes juice, uplifting the young men, and I think they really enjoyed themselves this spring and anytime your football team has fun, while practicing, really, really had, that’s when you have special things happen.”
